Following a history of more traditionally white leads than we can count on a hundred fingers, Jenny Han was excited to “showcase different kinds of talent” first and foremost and reflect the diverse world we live in, which hasn’t often been depicted in an honest way by Hollywood in the past.

In the book series, Belly was depicted as a white woman via the original cover but in the new show, she is a mixed race teen with a Korean mother and white father. And I think it feels really natural to the show, to the characters and the story. The Summer I Turned Pretty doesnt need more time to become a swan, coming out of the gate a solidly charming and sweet rom-com with appeal across generations. And then, we also have a new character Cleveland, who is Filipino. We get to have like an Asian American family on the show. And I think the diversity of characters is a piece of that, so it felt like a really great opportunity to showcase different kinds of talent. The book tells the story of Belly, a teenage girl who has spent every summer at the beach house with her mother and her. It is the first book in the Summer series, followed by It’s Not Summer Without You and We’ll Always Have Summer. When I was approaching the adaptation, I wanted to really reflect the moment that we're living in. The Summer I Turned Pretty is a young adult novel written by Jenny Han. When speaking to CinemaBlend, the best-selling author said of bringing more inclusion for the streaming adaptation: The Summer I Turned Pretty is an American coming-of-age romantic drama television series created by author Jenny Han for Amazon Prime Video, and is based on her novel trilogy of the same name.The series premiered on June 17, 2022, with the first season consisting of seven episodes. The Summer I Turned Pretty gets to reflect Jenny Han’s Korean roots through Belly and is enhanced by the additional diversity within its cast. Times have obviously changed in the past thirteen years and the romance genre is much more inclusive in regard to to telling Asian-American stories, which was in part normalized by the To All The Boys series starring Lana Condor.

The summer it turned pretty